Keyblade Practice
by vainya
Summary: So a while back a friend of mine challenged me to write a story about Axel, Roxas and keyblades. This was originally meant to be a one shot but for the sake of actually finishing it I'm going to post it in parts just to give you all something to read.


1

He was floating in a sea of gray. Everywhere he looked, there were formless bands of light.

"What is this place?" Roxas asked himself, but his voice seemed to echo off the nothingness around him.

He looked down at his hands, they were different. They were larger. The right hand was heavily calloused as was his own right hand, though this was where the similarities ended. Roxas had finally hit the floor and still it felt as if he was floating.

"Glass?!" Roxas yelled excitedly while pausing to kneel down to get a closer look at the face staring back at him. He gasped in shock. The same blue eyes were staring back at him but his face was different, his hair was dark brown and it was spikier than normal. He wanted to scream but he felt the air around him change and he woke up sweating and panting in his bed, in his room.

"That was weird." Roxas said getting out of bed and looking around the room. He quickly got dressed for the day. At least the clothes were simple, just the normal black Organization robes. After putting those on he crawled out of his space.

Proof of Existence was unusually quiet. Usually when he came up out of his space the place was bustling with activity. He constantly had to greet his superiors that hung out near the name stones. But not today, the room was deserted; there was not a trace of anyone, not even Axel.

He had really wanted to talk to him. Besides him being his best friend, he was also his superior and would know more about Organization XIII's workings than he would. He was still new and wanted to know everything that he could plus he wanted to tell Axel about the dreams he had been having.

Roxas now was walking through the lower depths of the castle. The only sounds were his footsteps and the rumbling of his stomach.

"Don't worry; I'll get some food in you soon enough." As soon as Roxas said this the big white double doors of the kitchen opened.

"Hey Vexen, have you seen Axel around?" Roxas asked casually.

"Still haven't learned have you? I swear, I don't know what the Superior sees in you." Vexen said walking off mumbling to himself.

"Uh, I'll take that as a no then?" Roxas said walking into the kitchen. The kitchen like always smelled of bacon, eggs, and cheese. Roxas particularly loved Zexion's cooking. That is to say Zexion was the only one who even bothered to mess with the stove in either here or Castle Oblivion.

"Castle Oblivion," Roxas said thinking out loud. "I wonder what that's like."

"Ah but that is none of your concern Number Thirteen." Zexion said. "That will be our little project."

Roxas blushed at the fact that Zexion had actually heard him. He had nothing to say in response and had instead grabbed his food and sat down over looking Luxord who was playing cards with his gambler nobodies.

"Say, Roxas you lookin' for Axel?" Luxord asked Roxas?

Roxas just nodded.

"I just might know where he is." Luxord teased.

"Really you do?!" Roxas said eagerly.

On one condition, you play me in a hand of cards." Luxord said cheerfully.

"Last time I did that you turned me into a card for a week!" Roxas said.

"Oh come on Roxas I thought it was funny." Luxord said as he laughed.

This made Roxas even angrier, and at this point he didn't care what Luxord knew. There was no way he was stooping to Luxord's level. Angry and eager to get out of there his finished his food quickly and stormed out of the castle. He was running toward Dark City. When he got there he made a stop in front of Memory's Skyscraper. It was there that he decided that he wanted to let off some steam. He called the Samurai nobodies to him and then he called his keyblade. Afterwards he started an all out battle that ended in many losses and failed combos.

"I just can't win!" he said in defeat.

"Maybe you're going about it the wrong way." said a familiar voice from behind.

"Axel?!" said Roxas who was now sitting on his behind in the middle of what used to be the fray.

"Yo!" Axel said while plowing through the Samurai nobodies with what seemed like ease with his chakrams.

"How do you do that?" Roxas asked in awe.

"Focus. I mean, these guys can handle up to four weapons if they wanted to. What's stopping you from doing the same?" He paused. "I mean what's your left hand doin' Roxas?"

Roxas looked at his hands. Was it truly possible that he could use more than one keyblade? Up until now he had only been using one. There was really nothing to lose by trying. Roxas concentrated, but all he could call was one blade, the blade that he always called "The Kingdom Key". He tried and tried but there was no result.

Axel on the other hand just sat back, watching and laughing at Roxas' failure.

"This isn't funny!" Roxas shot back at Axel and he sighed. "What would _he_ do?" Roxas thought.

"I got it!" he finally said.

At that moment, he concentrated all his energy toward calling the keyblade to him. He knew that he didn't have a heart but yet he tried anyway to find a place in his heart that wanted to win, that wanted to protect those he loved, his life; his home. Before Roxas knew it he had a new keyblade in his hand. It felt lighter than the Kingdom Key. The blade had an odd star shaped keychain and at the end of the blade there was what looked like a multi-colored snowflake. It had three colors, blue, purple and yellow at the tips. It was a great contrast to the rest of the keyblade which was just plain silver. Roxas couldn't believe it; he had summoned a new kind of keyblade.

"Ha! Look at that!" Roxas shouted.

Axel just stood there with his mouth wide open. Roxas had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing and instead was focused on the blade that he had just called. He was quickly snapped back to reality when a swarm of heartless came from the darkness and attacked them. Axel, having seen the swarm approach decided to sit this one out. He really didn't feel like doing extra work. He was after all technically off. He decided that he'd watch Roxas fight them off with his newly acquired keyblade. He was interested in just what it could do. Roxas just glared at Axel and looked at the task ahead of him. The blade felt so light in his hand and his light magic was lasting longer in between charges. The blade was also stronger and dealt more damage. He really loved this blade. The heartless however didn't like the blade so much and insisted on calling more of their buddies into the fight.

"Come on give me a break!" Roxas exclaimed now stepping into a dark corner as the heartless were swarming him. At this point Roxas had grown tired of fighting and was running out of alternatives. The only thing he could do now was close his eyes and hope for the best. The best came in the form of another keyblade. This one was more intricate, black with an upside down crown as the keychain. The key itself resembled a chain with a very interesting shape as the blade. With this keyblade he felt his strength, dexterity, and stamina rise. He was no longer tired and had the strength to deal with the swarm in front of him. He looked at the building and surprisingly ran up it, making small sweeping motions with both keyblades to keep off the swarm that followed him up. It was the only thing he could do with both the keyblades for now. The heartless disintegrated under each strike and Roxas was enjoying two keyblade combat. Axel may have been on to something there. He stopped at the top of the building looking down upon everything. This included Axel who had decided after all to turn the fray into a raging inferno.

The view was different from up here. The heartless however were not enjoying the view; they had called reinforcements. Neoshadows were coming his way his way from the bottom of the building. Roxas spun around and dived into the heartless he was just improvising. He closed his eyes and went along with the flow. When he opened his eyes the heartless were gone and everything was at peace again. Roxas sighed and ran over to his friend.

"Wild ride huh? Are you okay?" Roxas asked though he knew the answer. Axel always knew how to take care of himself.

"Yeah I'm okay." Axel replied half in shock and half tired.

"Two? You got two key blades?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Something to do with my left hand I suppose." Roxas replied and chuckled shyly.

This wasn't a dream. He was really holding two keyblades. Two different keyblades! It felt so much different than just holding the Kingdom Key, wherever that was. Roxas hadn't mastered the art of calling different keyblades to him. It was hard just summoning it. He was new to this whole keyblade thing. Was the Kingdom Key gone completely? There was no need to think about that now. Magically, just as the name Kingdom Key had been engraved in his mind he had learned the silver keyblade was called Oathkeeper and the black keyblade was called Oblivion.

"Uh, Roxas hello wake up!"

"Huh?" Axel was waving his hand in front of Roxas' face.

"Oh," Roxas said "sorry."

"Really sorry to interrupt your thinking but there's someplace I really need to go."

"What I thought you were off?"

"You coming or not?" Axel said as he opened a portal.

"Coming!" Roxas yelled and went through the portal.

They walked through Betwixt and Between and found themselves in a bustling city bathed in twilight.

"Axel, what is this place?" Roxas asked as they both walked through what seemed to be a bustling market place.

"This place is Twilight Town. Nice place don't you—"

Roxas had stopped listening a long time ago. He was focused on a group of friends, two guys and a girl. The girl was yelling at the blonde-haired boy cautioning him that he would explode from eating too much ice cream. Roxas laughed silently. He did not know where the feeling came from, but it was of belonging; he wanted to—he didn't know, some sort of friendship. He had to snap out of it. After all he had no heart, how could he feel anything?

Meanwhile, Axel had made it his mission to buy some of this ice cream. It looked as if Roxas had wanted some.

"Huh, oh thanks!" Roxas said taking it. They seemed so familiar, but he didn't know them, he couldn't have. The thought continuously weighed down on him. It was almost unbearable.

Axel had tried the ice cream himself while Roxas was just sitting there letting his melt. He noticed Axel's face and how it twisted every time he licked it. It was clear that he didn't like it.

"Hey, it's melting!" Axel shouted at Roxas.

"Oh yeah it is." Roxas said sighing.

"Hey wanna go up there?" Axel asked pointing to the clock tower.

"Whoa, could we really go up there?"

"Sure we could, just watch." Axel said as he ran up toward the station.

"Hey, wait for me!" Roxas yelled behind him playfully.

A few minutes later they both were sitting at the top of the clock tower watching the sunset.

"Oh wow! So this is Twilight Town?" Roxas said looking down at the entire city.

"Yeah, the sun never really sets here. It's close to darkness but it's not like our world, always dark nor is it full of light like some other worlds." Axel explained to Roxas.

"Hey do you ever dream of your somebody?"

"What me? Nope I don't, only what I remember about being me."

"Oh, sometimes I have dreams about me, only it's not me it's somebody else."

"Don't worry too much about Roxas. You have other things to worry about like your new style of combat that you've just acquired."

"Oh yeah," Roxas blushed, "I don't really know how to handle two keyblades."

"Well it's nothing a little practice can't fix. Actually we can practice here in the Sandlot."

"Won't people see us?"

"I have ways of making that happen. Just be there tomorrow after the mission meeting, got it memorized?"

"Got it! I'll be here tomorrow." As Roxas was saying this Axel jumped from the tower, disappearing.

"Axel?!" Roxas called behind him. "Hey he's gone."

Roxas then made a portal back to The World that Never Was.


End file.
